Absorbent sanitary paper products, such as bath tissue, facial tissue, and paper towels are commonly used in households, businesses, restaurants, shops, and the like.
Manufacturers of absorbent paper products understand that consumers desire absorbent sanitary paper products to be soft to the touch. Softness is a complex tactile impression elicited by an absorbent sanitary paper product when it is stroked against human skin. The purpose of being soft is so that these absorbent sanitary paper products can be used to cleanse the skin without causing irritation.
Accordingly, absorbent sanitary paper products, such as bath tissue and paper towel products, that promote softness, comfort, and/or cleaning without providing any performance-impairing sacrifices have long been the goal of the engineers and scientists devoted to improving absorbent sanitary paper products. There have been numerous attempts to reduce abrasive effects such as improving the softness of absorbent sanitary paper products as well as increase the absorbency thereof.
Although somewhat desirable for towel products, softness can be a particularly important property for facial and bath tissue products. Such tactile perceivable softness can be characterized by, but is not limited to, friction, flexibility, and smoothness, as well as subjective descriptors, such as lubricious, velvet, silk or flannel, which imparts a lubricious feel to tissue.
Another important physical property related to softness is generally considered by those skilled in the art to be the strength of the absorbent sanitary paper products. Strength is the ability of the absorbent sanitary paper products, and its constituent webs, to maintain physical integrity and to resist tearing, bursting, and shredding under use conditions. Achieving a high softening potential without degrading strength has long been an object of workers in the field of the present invention.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to be able to produce and provide an absorbent sanitary paper product that provides higher tactile softness while maintaining strength at least at par with currently available commercial absorbent sanitary paper products.